


anhedonia

by dragonsong (NekoAisu)



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood, Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood Spoilers, Gen, Introspection, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Patch 5.2: Echoes of a Fallen Star, Patch 5.2: Echoes of a Fallen Star Spoilers, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:23:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22940134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/dragonsong
Summary: Zenos wonders if someone will greet him upon entrance to his final sleep. They have done it every night so far.Why would death be any different?
Relationships: Varis zos Galvus & Zenos yae Galvus, Zenos yae Galvus & Hythlodaeus, Zenos yae Galvus & Warrior of Light
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26





	anhedonia

**Author's Note:**

> 5.2 zenos has me by the throat
> 
> Huge thank you to [Emet-Selch’s Bookclub](https://discord.gg/CKPWNz) for enabling me. i love all of you

The first time Zenos meets a god, he is eight years old and very, very lonely. They smile at him, half their face covered by a mask painted an unassuming grey, and ask,  _ “Are you lost, little one?”  _

They are taller than his father. He thinks that if anyone can call him “little” (which he is not! He is a big boy, thank you very much) it would be this strange god. His father told him not to worship, though, so he stays very carefully quiet and thinks of happier things. Things like how he is inside a building and not standing in a field full of fire and burning and screaming because  _ it hurts so bad  _ and— _ “Little one?” _

He did not realize he had been breathing much too quick until they speak to him. It is like a switch has been flipped from then on because he  _ cannot breathe _ and the world was very determined to spin instead of staying in focus. Zenos finds he is sitting rather abruptly. He decides he does not like the muted red of his pajama pants shortly thereafter. 

The god towers over him even while crouching and ever so carefully pats him on the head.  _ “Shall I see you home? This is no place for a child.” _

Home. Could… could he go home? “I want my father,” Zenos finds himself saying, high and reedy with want to cry. “I want to go home.”

They hush him gently.  _ “And so you shall.” _

He wakes. 

The clock by his bed reads  _ 06:35 _ in blue-white lettering. He struggles to read it through tear-blurred eyes. It takes him a moment, but he manages. 

His father does not allow him to pad down the hall to his room. Not at this hour or any other. He is to be a Galvus man. He is not so weak as to need comfort after something silly like a dream. His attendants all agree. 

He is simply the sole sufferer of an overactive imagination. As any good and upstanding parent would do, he is left be to sort it out himself. 

So, Zenos does what any self-respecting child would do after having a nightmare: he cries. 

It is only after his tears dry up that he wonders if that god was the master of the dream realm he visits every night. He wonders if maybe, just maybe, he could ask them to make it stop. 

But that is a thought for the him within dreams. It is nearly seven and he needs to be up for breakfast. With that thought in mind and the hope that he may have figured out a way to stop his terrible dreams, he prepares for the day. 

It takes all of his patience to sit through a lecture on Garlean Imperial history when he is pretty sure most of those old guys he is tasked to write lines about aren’t ones his father cares for. Same with religion and tactics. He is  _ eight  _ and very, very  _ bored!  _ What it would take for his instructors to teach in a fun way is unknown to him, but he craves it dearly.

He finished his lessons and takes lunch. He does not want to eat much. He still forces himself to finish his gratin. 

Martial practice follows afterward. He throws up twice. His instructor says he is too weak. Zenos wants to say that he is solely because of the hope that it might let him hide in his room and seek solace. 

He takes dinner after that and eats three peas. His father does not notice. 

Sleep is slow in coming, but when it does, it sweeps in like a wash of flame. The god is not there.

Zenos feels tiny when more of their kind rush past, feet thundering on cracked pavement, and do not spare him a glance. He looks for a bench and hauls himself up to sit on it. He would wait for someone benevolent and kind to take notice of him again. He will be patient.

He kicks his legs. Wiggles his fingers. Claps his hands. Changes position five times. 

Nothing happens. Nobody notices him. 

He wakes after a meteor blinds him with painfully brilliant light. His curtains are open. The sun is just as bad. 

He cycles through another day. Night follows. He does not sleep. 

The week plods along, sleep brought in snatches between lecture and meals until he is too tired to stay awake in the wee hours and falls to his fear. The god greets him familiarly. 

_ “Back again so soon, little one? What curiosity you must possess.” _

He heaves a shuddering breath. Asking them hus most ardent wish feels even more terrifying than the dream itself. He fears their rejection so acutely it is physically painful. He whispers, “Can you stop this?” 

The god shakes their head.  _ “That I could, I would do so without hesitation. I am not greater than a god’s will.” _

Zenos does not understand how someone so large and so wise could possibly be beholden to a god. “What are you,” he wonders aloud, “if not a god?”

_ “I am an Amaurotine,”  _ they answer.  _ “Just like you.” _

He frowns. “I am  _ Garlean _ . I am not Amaurotine.”

They laugh and the sound is akin to a scrambled huff. It grates against his nerves.  _ “I had thought you one of Hades’s protégés. Tell me, then, little one of the Garleans, what brings you to our fair city?” _

“I want to go home, but I—“ he chokes up, tired and scared and so very lonely “—I can’t get it to  _ stop.  _ I want my father. I—I want to go  _ home  _ and sleep  _ soundly  _ and have  _ good dreams  _ because this is not good at all!” He realizes he was yelling after he stops. “Oh. My apologies.” 

They pat him on the head just like the first time and ask,  _ “What do you know of the End of Days?” _

He answers and they teach. It is learned, half a year later and with no end to his fatigue, that their name is Hythlodaeus. It is taught, a year after, that they are long since dead. 

Their owl mask with it’s empty, black eye-holes seems far less comforting after that. 

They ask him on the eve of his nameday,  _ “What would you like, little one, that I may fashion a gift for you?” _

“I would like a friend,” he says. “Though I know you cannot provide it.”

They hum and tap a finger against their lower lip, thinking and Creating. Strange, malformed beings spill from the array before them. They pick up a mandragora from the mismatched assembly before them and hand it to him.  _ “It will not follow you to your world of waking, but perhaps it will be of comfort while you are here.” _

Zenos holds the mandragora, its tiny onion head large in comparison to his build. He is so grateful he could cry. “Thank you, Hythlodaeus,” he says instead. “This is the best gift I have ever received.

_ “And you the best student I have had the fortune to teach,”  _ they reply.  _ “How about we fancy this place up a bit and have a proper celebration?” _

Zenos fidgets, wondering if he could possibly have things like cake and confetti. He wants to ask, but the anxious little voice in the back of his head says that if his father found out, he would be upset and Zenos wants to be a good son. 

“Thank you, but I will have to decline,” he says. “Father says I am not to eat sugary foods all too often.”

Hythlodaeus frowns, though not at him.  _ “What a miserly father you have.” _

“He is looking out for my health!”

_ “And look at you! A strapping, young man with energy and compassion to spare! Some sweets every once in a while will not change that,”  _ they assert, gesturing at him with wild abandon.  _ “I have sweets  _ fairly  _ often and you don’t see  _ me  _ getting sick.” _

“You said you were  _ dead,”  _ Zenos points out, giggling quietly when Hythlodaeus shrugs. 

_ “What’s death without a little party?” _

Zenos thinks about it. Paces around a gigantic piece of gilded tiling. Looks at his dancing mandragora. 

“I… would like a party,” he admits, “with cake and confetti. And maybe visitors? Friends to enjoy it with us!”

Hythlodaeus smiles and it feels more fatherly than anything Varis has ever shown him. Zenos wonders if maybe he can get a new father. Preferably, get  _ Hythlodaeus  _ as a father. 

They conjure streams of colored paper to hang from the vaulted ceiling, bursts of confetti that never seem to run out or pile up, and an entire table covered from corner to corner with a wild assortment of food. They Create more as the night goes on—spectres of friends, little companions for his mandragora, a pile of presents where the wrappings spell riddles—until the meteor approaches again. They can see it out the tall windows of Hythlodaeus’s study. 

_ “This is good morning, little one,”  _ they say.  _ “Or perhaps I should call you Zenos. You are a young man, now, yes? Not a boy any longer.” _

Zenos nods his head. “Next you see me, I’ll be a man!”

They laugh and shake their head.  _ “What vigor you have. I hope to see you soon, Zenos. Don’t forget, sweets can be good for you sometimes.” _

He wakes with the aftertaste of rolanberry jelly still on his tongue. Hythlodaeus is nowhere to be seen. 

Zenos is alone again. 

He jumps from his bed and gets dressed. He decides that maybe he will be a little daring and wear colorful socks with his shorts today. It  _ is  _ his nameday, after all. 

His father does not approve. “Have your tutors not taught you better than to dress so gaudily, son?”

“My apologies, father. I had thought it may be excusable, on account of my nameday?”

Varis, in a rare fit of understanding, nods his consent. “That it is. The gala will be tonight. Do wear pants, should you choose to continue with your choice in footwear.”

Zenos has never been happier. 

The feeling follows him all day and pops out during lessons. His feet tap between questions, tongue sticking out of his mouth when he focuses on math that reminds him of Hythlodaeus’s matrices. He does not get any of the problems wrong. 

The day passes with the swift slowness of something greatly anticipated. The gala comes around and he wears his best suit. He puts on even more outrageously colorful (read: light blue instead of hunter green) socks. His father pats him on the head with pride. 

“You look very handsome,” his new consort says. Zenos does not mind her. She makes his father happy. 

“Thank you,” he replies. “You look very pretty!” 

She smiles and it makes her eyes light up. He wonders if his mother was also that kind looking. His father does not like to speak of it. 

They attend the gala. Zenos does his best not to fidget when each family introduces themselves. He sneaks over to the refreshments and swipes a good few butter cookies. His father looks at him with some manner of frustration before sighing and waving him over. 

Zenos expects a quiet reprimand but instead gets whispered wisdom of “the one at the bottom of the pile are freshest” and his father attempting a conspiratorial smile. It is the best night he has had in  _ years _ .

He lays in bed after the gala, full of candies and confections of all sorts, and wishes ardently that he could have a friend to share it with. 

In the year that follows, he gets a manservant, a hospital stay, the Forbidden Knowledge of how to steal sweet caramel tea from the kitchens, and Hythlodaeus’s instruction on exactly how  _ not  _ to force aether into his body. Not that he listened to the warnings so much as took them in stride. 

It is his sixth day on bed rest when his sword instructor visits and says that he may be better served by further hours of tactical study. 

Nobody knows what caused his fit of fever and frenzy. They all assume a winter cold. 

He studies and keeps working on his swordsmanship. He moves on from a wooden practice blade to a blunted metal one. He turns ten. He tries magic again. He is asked if his manservant needs be sent away. There is no other explanation for his sudden illness if not lower born bringing sickness into his room. 

He has no other explanation and has to agree. He learns that they were thrown off the lands three months later when rumors begin to circulate about “that poor servant fellow who died this past summer. I heard his family is sick with grief.”

Zenos thinks that it was his fault. Hythlodaeus does not agree. Their meetings have been sparse, these days. 

They stop altogether after his twelfth nameday. 

No matter how ardently he calls out in his dream, how much he runs, how many doors he pounds on with tiny hands and feet, he cannot find them. He is alone in all aspects, now. 

His mandragora wanders off while he cries. He hasn’t the heart to find them. 

The dreams continue. His misfortunes continue. His father’s consort passes away after being poisoned. Varis refuses to consider anything other than an inside job. They get all new staff. 

Zenos is fifteen and very, very lonely. He jams a crystal into his arm and knows Hythlodaeus would be upset with him. He finds he does not care. 

His new sword instructor is terrible and Zenos finds that he hates him. It makes killing him easier. The magic helps, too. 

His father yells at him. The maids cower. He can barely tell what is being said past the fog that has taken up residence in his brain over the past few years. 

His father stops, fuming in his robes of office. Zenos asks, “Is that all?”

He is sent to a military academy later that year. He wonders why he used to fear rejection so much when all he ever seems to get from others is that selfsame disgust. He graduates in two years and is placed in command of a small battalion. 

It feels good, he learns shortly thereafter, to preside over others and watch them scramble to meet his demands.  _ He  _ is the one issuing orders.  _ He  _ is the one the world could learn to revolve around. Even Eorzean savages know it. 

His father takes the throne. He becomes crown prince. It does not sit well on his shoulders. 

He begins to grow out his hair one ilm at a time. His father seems to think it is for the eventuality of the crown. Zenos does it because he wants to see his father’s face when he cuts it off before accepting the throne. 

They are always at odds. 

Then, years and months of painful boredom later, there is the Warrior of Light and he cannot get enough of them. They set fire to his soul. His heart  _ sings.  _ The feelings they arouse in him are so strong and so  _ unfamiliar  _ that he worries for the state of his heart. Never has the Hunt been so engrossing! Never before has it been  _ anticipated!  _

He always has want for them,  _ need  _ for them, a taste on the tip of his tongue for their sweat and blood. 

He takes on the form of a beast, a god made flesh by the terrors of war. They best him. 

They best him and yet do not finish him off. 

Very well, he would do it himself if they will not. 

_ He  _ will triumph. There will be no spoils for them to take into their savage hands. He would ruin their kill. 

“Goodbye, my friend, my enemy.”

And he wonders absently, in the second before he draws his blade across his neck, if Hythlodaeus will greet him in death. 

He is so very lonely.

**Author's Note:**

> Hmu on:  
> Tunglr @ffxivimagines  
> Twitter @khirimochi  
> Discord @NekoAisu#7099
> 
> Or check out the bookclub server for good fic and even better company [here](https://discord.gg/CKPWNz)!


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